The Stanford Internet Observatory is being dismantled | House Republicans attacked the lab’s reports on misinformation and election integrity — and now Stanford is pulling the plug - eviltoast
  • Chainweasel@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    I disagree.
    You can’t have any kind of moral high ground in a situation where not fighting will get people killed.
    Refusing to rally against the disinformation increases the likelihood of it’s success.
    Who’s going to get hurt if it succeeds?
    -millions of women with pregnancy complications that will no longer be able to seek abortions to save their lives.
    -millions of minorities at the hands of the state whenever Trump eventually institutes concentration camps.
    -millions of LGBTQ+ people well also end up in those concentration camps.
    -millions of people dependent on things like Medicare and Medicaid will lose health insurance and die from complications.
    -millions of children will starve or experience malnutrition when food stamp programs like WIC are canceled.
    Those things aren’t immediately obvious to the layman but they should be painfully obvious to institutions made up of people who understand the psychology enough to counter disinformation.
    Anyone who understands the moral implications of letting the disinformation succeed and still chooses not to fight back against it with everything they have absolutely deserves to be shamed and blamed.

    • bolexforsoup@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      5 months ago

      Again, I want them to stand up and push back, but we need to remember who is ultimately the source of the problem here and keep our anger/blame squarely directed at them.

      • Chainweasel@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        The GOP Congress is the source of the problem solely because people refuse to stand up to them.
        If they would stand up and help eliminate the problem there wouldn’t be a problem to begin with.

        • bolexforsoup@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          5 months ago

          The GOP is the source of the problem solely because they choose to be one. You are completely missing the issue. Blaming perceived enablers is ridiculous.

          • Curious Canid@lemmy.ca
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            5 months ago

            I appreciate your patient contributions to this discussion. And I agree with you. This is another case of blaming the victim. When someone makes a threat threatens you the focus needs to be on those making the threat. How you handle the threat is only important if no one stops the aggressor.

            Large parts of the GOP want to turn our country into a “what it used to be” that never existed. Destroying our educational system is a critical part of that mission. The lies at the base of their movement are not very effective against people with critical thinking skills, so they want to avoid letting anyone teach those.

            These people are a genuine threat because we have allowed them into positions of genuine power. There will be no long-term solutions to the problems they are causing until we get them back out of power.

            • bolexforsoup@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              5 months ago

              Appreciate your hearing me out. I think people really want to make this too binary. I do want Stanford and other schools to do the right thing, but we can’t act like this is their fault. It’s squarely the GOP’s and we need to support these universities and encourage them to push back without saying “this is your fault.”